“I’ll tell you from the top—actually, I also don’t understand why ‘blue seals’ exist. Were they born that way? Or are they like us, externally activated?” Cheng Weizhi’s voice was very pleasant, and he spoke neither quickly nor slowly. When explaining, he knew how to naturally let a person follow his train of thought, as though he was used to providing commentary. “I also don’t know what organization, what power is driving this base or formed it. Strictly speaking, ‘blue seals’ are separated into two kinds. One type is called a ‘Conversion Type Blue Seal,’ and one is an ‘Auxiliary Type Blue Seal.’” 

“They said I was a Type 2 Auxiliary Type Blue Seal,” Su Qing put in. 

Cheng Weizhi nodded, looking at Su Qing approvingly. “Yes. The Auxiliary Types are also called grey seals, because the seals on our bodies are grey, different from the blue seals of Conversion Types.” 

Su Qing had never in his life been looked at as though being taken for a good student. He began to play up. “Yes, yes, that’s the thing, like a worm, and it moves. Uncle Cheng, what on earth is it?” 

Cheng Weizhi considered, as though he was unsure how to express it. After a while, he responded, “I’ve seen that the seals on different types of grey seals are different, so I’ve inferred that the mark is cast on the skin by the energy crystal—do you know where the energy in a human body comes from?” 

“It’s…some kind of reaction, I learned it in school, but I don’t remember clearly.” 

Cheng Weizhi picked up: “Simply put, through a redox reaction, we use the energy-containing matter we eat—generally speaking, the chemical energy stored in carbohydrates—to support all the body’s functions. This energy can make you move and think, can make you a ‘normal human,’ but under ordinary circumstances, it can’t make you rise into the sky or burrow under the earth, can’t turn you into a ‘superhuman’ like…those people.” 

Su Qing sat sloppily with one leg crossed over the other, leaning on the table, holding a cookie in his mouth. His bad habit was playing up again. He wasn’t eating properly but gnawing like a mouse. He said indistinctly, “Now you say that, I remember—when I was little my dad hired a tutor to come and teach me this, and I thought that teacher was playing tricks on me, because when he was finished teaching, my young spirit developed a dream of becoming a superhuman. I put away four mantou in one meal like crazy, and the upshot was, I didn’t become a superhuman—I became a patient and got taken to the hospital for over a week.” 

Su Qing seemed to have a natural ability to remember the good and not the bad, to forget a thing once it was out of his sight. Having come into this little room with warm water, cookies, and a place to sit, it was as if the earlier terror had been shut out by the grey door. In hardly any time, he livened up again at the speed of light. 

Cheng Weizhi looked at him and smiled with a drop of unspeakable pain. 

He thought, each person who came here was a vivid life like Su Qing at first, and then each one slowly decayed and was crushed in this lightless grey house, in the end becoming a walking corpse—the woman Shi Huizhang had taken away to get rid of, those Type 4s, himself, Su Qing…all of them would be buried here. 

Su Qing carelessly continued to say, “But anyhow, if you eat a lot, you just get fat. I’ve never heard of a greedy guts turning into a superhuman.” 

Cheng Weizhi came around and looked down at the slightly shaking surface of the water in his cup. He gave an “oh” and continued to explain: “That’s because if you ingest too many nutrients, it will only lead to carbohydrates that can’t be broken down turning into fat in large quantities. But…if you assume the existence of a new energy form that utilizes an entirely different type of energy, thousands or tens of thousands of times greater than chemical energy, which enters the body in an entirely different form, then what?” 

“Huh?” Su Qing, cookie in his mouth, blinked his clueless eyes, racked his brains, and said, “Then you blow up like a balloon?” 

Cheng Weizhi nodded. “That’s one option. When a large amount of energy enters the human body without a way to release or use it, the storage organ will rupture—the energy crystal I mentioned is just such an organ for converting and storing energy. Those researchers use some extreme method to forcefully stimulate it. You can understand it as a latent capacity of the human body. The function of the energy crystal is precisely to use some means to absorb emotions and convert them into energy. That’s the new type of energy I mentioned, so-called ‘emotional energy.’” 

At this point, Su Qing already somewhat understood. At last he gave up on grinding his teeth on the cookie. He stared for a while, then, with a miserable expression, said, “No…no way. I just heard someone say that the grey seals’ mission is to cover for the blue seals, absorb some opposing emotion. Shit, that Chen asshole even said that they’d let me go after three times. I knew it couldn’t be that easy!” 

Cheng Weizhi quietly watched Su Qing spring up, return to a fretful state, and start pacing around the room. 

It was probably a wrong impression, but Su Qing felt the grey seal on his body begin to burn. He suddenly stuck his hand fiercely into his shirt and clawed a few times. Welts at once rose on his tender skin, but the flowing grey seal remained there untouched. 

Su Qing took a very deep breath and inadvertently looked at Cheng Weizhi. He thought, Forget it, the old fellow is all right, so what am I fretting about? This uncle just said he’s been here two months, so it seems I can also survive intact for at least two months. I can take my time thinking up a way to escape. 

Then he plopped back down in front of Cheng Weizhi, found himself a cup, poured water, and downed it irrevocably. He said, “According to what you’ve said, the blue seals can use the energy, and the grey seals can’t use the energy. So they can leap onto roofs and vault over walls, but we just have to sit around waiting to turn into balloons?” 

Cheng Weizhi said, “Yes, I’ve inferred that because the grey seals’ energy crystals are externally stimulated, there may be a flaw in the energy crystal’s energy system circuit.” 

Su Qing restlessly tugged his hair, understanding that he couldn’t count on others in this damned place. He could only count on himself to think of a way. He considered it disconsolately for a while, then said, “Then can you tell me precisely what is going on with all the blue seals, grey seals, and auxiliaries?” 

Cheng Weizhi got out a piece of paper and wrote four words on it: “happiness,” “sadness,” “fear,” “anger.” He pointed with his pen tip and said, “I’ll start from the top. Each person here, whether blue seal or grey seal, has only one energy crystal. In other words, each person can only absorb energy of one aspect. Emotions are normally separated into eight basic types, but it may be that the other emotions aren’t strong enough, or there may be some other reason—at any rate, at present, there are only four kinds that can be used for energy.” 

Su Qing concentrated whole-heartedly. He had never listened so earnestly to a lesson in his life—actually, thinking about it, if he had tried a little harder in life, he wouldn’t have met Guo Julin, so he wouldn’t have been dumped by him, so he wouldn’t have gone to drink away his depression and have a one-night stand, so he wouldn’t have come in contact with that plague god Hu Bugui, and so he wouldn’t have attracted Chen Lin's band of psycho blue seals…

But so what? There was that expression again—there was no such thing as a medicine for regret. 

Cheng Weizhi continued: “According to current classification, those who can absorb happiness are called Type 1s, and the rest are named in similar fashion—sadness types are Type 2s, fear types are Type 3s, anger types…”

He smiled somewhat self-mockingly. “You saw them—the so-called Type 4s.” 

Su Qing, counting on his fingers, said, “Happiness is the opposite of sadness, so…fear is the opposite of anger? What happens if there isn’t a grey seal?” 

Cheng Weizhi said, “If one aspect of a person’s emotions is depleted without limit, then the opposite will be amplified without limit. What do you think will happen?” 

“Oh, you get Bao SEED¹.” Su Qing nodded, considered, then asked, “So if the grey seals are divided into this many types, then the opposing blue seals must also have corresponding types, so they could be a scourge onto each other—what are they doing dragging in so many sacrificial victims?” 

¹爆SEED - Cantonese slang meaning to suddenly become motivated/reach your full potential as in a fight; the capitals are because the term originates from the anime Gundam SEED.

Cheng Weizhi said, “I’ve inferred that when a Conversion Type Blue Seal absorbs energy, it’s like a person eating food. Some people can eat one mantou and be full, others eat half a mantou and it’s enough, while others can’t get full on two. But grey seals are different. Grey seals absorb emotions passively.” 

“Oh, filling in the gaps. So they’re responsible for eating the meat, while we’re responsible for finishing off the soup.” Su Qing nodded again. After nodding, he caught up and asked, “So how do you know all this?” 

Cheng Weizhi laughed bitterly. “The blue seals operate on a large scale. When they go out to ‘hunt’ emotions, they call it a ‘feast.’ I’ve taken part in one feast already. That feeling…” 

He took a deep breath and actually trembled slightly. Su Qing’s eyes widened, and he subconsciously held his breath. He heard Cheng Weizhi say, “When it happened, I couldn’t hear any sound. I felt like the air around me was squeezing my brain with all its might. It hurt so much I wanted to bash my head against a wall or cut it off…but at the same time, I could still feel a bizarre happiness.” 

“Happiness?” 

“I’m a Type 1 Auxiliary Blue Seal, the happiness type. External emotions and my own emotions attracted each other, evoking many, many happy memories. The more it hurt, the happier I was. I desperately reminded myself that it was all fake, that all the illogical feelings came from outside. Gradually, as the pain increased, I could distinguish which were my emotions and which were external.” 

Su Qing opened his mouth wide and didn’t know what to say. 

Cheng Weizhi sighed. “You’re a good child. You must remember, if they take you out to do this thing, you must not get confused. You must not get confused by others’ emotions, or else you’ll be finished. Before your energy crystal can rupture, you’ll become like that crowd of lunatics and idiots out there.” 

Stammering, Su Qing asked with boundless reverence, “Can-can you tell me, how-how not to get confused?” 

“Be calm, use seamless logic, and understand what kind of person you are.” 

Su Qing was silent for a while. The foolish expression left his face. The young man’s profile was astonishingly beautiful. When he wasn’t bewildered, wasn’t dejected, wasn’t playing dumb, he really did look somewhat presentable. 

Then, with a trace of hope, he asked, “If I do these three things and don’t get confused, will I be able to survive?” 

Cheng Weizhi gently closed his eyes and shook his head. “You’ll only die with dignity.” 

Su Qing gave a brief laugh, stood up, and sat dejectedly on his own bedding. He fell back and lay in a sprawl, eyes looking fixedly at the ceiling. 

It was already dark. Cheng Weizhi saw that he seemed to have sustained a shock, so he quietly stood up and went to the bathroom to clean himself up and get ready for bed. 

When he passed by Su Qing, the young man who hadn’t moved in a long time suddenly sat up in bed. “Uncle Cheng, if there’s something I don’t understand in the future, can I ask you again?” 

Cheng Weizhi looked down at him and softly said, “Child, what are you thinking of doing?” 

“We must be able to escape.” Su Qing looked at him and said, “I’ve lived for over twenty years, and I never thought that I would die like this. I don’t accept it. I don’t believe it. We must be able to think of a way to escape.” 

Cheng Weizhi sighed. “Young man…”